Mobster identifying Hoffa burial site wanted Teamster snatched

Convicted Detroit mob chief, Anthony (Tony Z) Zerilli maybe wasn't as good of a friend to murdered union leader Jimmy Hoffa as he says he was.

Despite claiming he was a supporter and ally of Hoffa in a surprising interview with WNBC's Mark Santia earlier this week, Zerilli's words regarding the former Teamsters President weren't so kind in transcripts from FBI wiretaps recorded 50 years ago.

In a transcript unearthed by Allen Lengel of Deadline Detroit.com and originally printed in part by the Detroit Free Press in 1976, Zerilli, 85, and the one-time second-in-charge of the local mob crime family, contemplates harming Hoffa.

"We should grab that Jimmy Hoffa," Zerilli is heard saying on a wiretap in the early 1960s.

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The inference taken from the remark, according to an FBI report in the 1970s, was that Zerilli was seeking to kidnap and possibly kill Hoffa, in a dispute arising around labor union business.

The wiretap which yielded Zerilli's comment was installed at the Home Juice Company on the east side of Detroit in late 1962. At that time, Home Juice was the headquarters of the notorious Giacalone brothers, Anthony (Tony Jack) and Vito (Billy Jack), the area mafia's "street bosses" from the late 1950s through the 2000s.

Although the wiretap produced hundreds of hours of conversations between the Giacalones and their associates - one of which was Zerilli, then a rising "capo" or "captain" in the Detroit mob - over a near two-year period, the transcripts were never used in any court proceedings.

Responding to Zerilli's desire to "grab" Hoffa, Tony Giacalone rejected the idea, if only for self-preservation.

"He's (Hoffa) keeping me out of prison," Giacalone said.

The sentiment expressed by Zerilli a half century ago flies in the face of comments he made about Hoffa in his recent interview.

"I would have done anything in the world to protect Jimmy Hoffa....he was a gentlemen and what happened to him is as wrong as anything could be as far as I'm concerned," he told Santia.

Zerilli made national headlines this week telling Santia and WDIV's Kevin Dietz that Hoffa was buried on property off Buell Road in Oakland Township. The property, now vacant, but once housing a barn, was owned by Zerilli's first cousin, convicted Detroit mob don Giacomo (Black Jack) Tocco, 85, of Macomb County, at the time Hoffa disappeared in the summer of 1975.

Zerilli himself was in prison serving a five-year sentence for skimming millions of dollars from a Las Vegas casino when Hoffa was killed.

Hoffa was last seen leaving the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox in Bloomfield Township on July 30, 1975. He had told people that he was supposed to meet Tony Giacalone at the Red Fox that afternoon, but Giacalone never showed.

Both Giacalone brothers, Zerilli and Tocco were all indicted together in 1996 in a giant federal racketeering case that took the government over 15 years to build.

Tocco, Zerilli and Billy Giacalone were all convicted in the case and sent to prison. Tony Giacalone died of cancer in 2001 still awaiting trial.

Upon their releases from incarceration, Tocco and Zerilli had a falling out and, according to sources familiar with both men, are no longer on speaking terms.

The FBI is aware of the animosity that exists with the pair and is considering the possibility that Zerilli is only pointing to Tocco's former property as Hoffa's burial site because of bad blood between the two cousins.

Taking that into account, there is still no doubt that Zerilli is the most credible source to come forward in the long-speculated upon Hoffa investigation, which has seen thousands of tips and leads over the past 38 years.

"He's the real deal and at one time he was a very influential member of the mafia both here in Detroit and in a lot of other places around the country," said retired FBI agent Mike Carone of Zerilli's reputation. "You might question some of his story, but you have to take it seriously."